The Memory Thief by Rachel Keener Page A

could feel the
making
of one.
    She faced the ocean, her arms wrapped tight around herself as she whispered, “Poor baby girl.”

A NGEL

I
    Inside my left front pocket is a picture. Daddy’s back is turned, but if you could see his face you’d see love. Real as any
     of us ever knew. You’d see pride, too, as he gently scrubbed that car. You’d understand why he called it Baby. Why he used
     to joke that it made up for the fact that Momma didn’t give him a son.
    It was a 1970 Chevy Chevelle that shot little bits of fire from its muffler. It was green, but not rich like grass or yellow
     like tobacco. It was an in-between shade that Daddy called Money.
    Momma took that picture on a hot September afternoon. We were all outside in our cutoffs, Momma and Janie wearing bikini tops.
     I was a bare-chested five-year-old with nothing to cover.
    That afternoon he parked like he always did. As close to our trailer as he could get without splitting the tin walls.
    “Bring me buckets,” he yelled.
    We hurried inside to start the shower and fill up anything we could find. A mixing bowl. An empty milk jug. The little plastic
     bucket that Momma kept her curlers in. We carried them to him, careful not to spill any water and encourage the rust that
     crawled across our tin home.
    “Bring ’em quicker,” Daddy ordered. “If the sun sets, there’ll be water spots.”
    We worked as fast as our skinny-girl arms let us. We didn’t talk or laugh. We didn’t even stay to watch him pour the water
     over the car. We carried water, over and over, to the front door.
    “Bless him,” my baby mouth whispered.
    Like he had sneezed. Or given me a gift. I learned the words from Mrs. Swarm before she served a farmhand supper.
Bless this food, Lord.
But I found the desire by my grandma’s grave.
Let’s pray over your troubles
, the preacher comforted us. There were many things I did not yet know about my daddy. But there was one thing no one needed
     to teach me. He was trouble.
    Momma slid from the trailer as Daddy polished the car with a soft piece of deer hide. She wore red lipstick, her shirt knotted
     up in front. She leaned against the car, showing herself off. I hid behind the corner and watched her. Leaned my body against
     the trailer. Matched the angles of my shoulders, the arc of my back, to hers.
    “Woman, git one smudge on this car and I swear I’ll…,” Daddy began, before Momma stood up and yelled, too.
    They argued over that car more than where the money went. More than over all the hours Daddy spent gone, long after farm work
     was done.
    “Weren’t for me, wouldn’t be no car,” Momma liked to say. “It’s been as much home as any you give us.”
    She was right. We lived in that green car the first half of summer, after Daddy lost his mechanic job and the peach crops
     didn’t need any more workers. After two months of not paying rent, the sheriff showed up with a piece of paper covered in
     big words that no one in my family could read. “What it means,” the sheriff hollered, “is if you don’t have the money, you
     have to git.” With nothing but old clothes piled in the trunk and my green baby blanket clutched in my fist, we left Daniel
     Island. “It’s awright,” Momma whispered to herself. “Promise land’s waitin’.”
    I was the baby, and a small one, too. So while Janie slept curled up on the backseat and Momma and Daddy leaned their bucket
     seats back, I snuggled into a ball on the car floor. When morning came, Momma would drag me from the car to pee in a ditch
     by the road, my legs too numb and confused to move.
    We crossed state lines twice. Daddy found weekend work at old garages. Just enough for gas money and a little food to keep
     moving. We entered East Tennessee, on our way to the big city of Memphis. But in that part of Tennessee we didn’t pass any
     cities. Just miles and miles of land with barns and old houses scattered across it. Occasionally we’d drive through a hub